The Great Global Hackerspace Challenge

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Hello to all of the amazing hackers who’ve participated in this Great Global Hackerspace Challenge!

In the end, 27 hackerspaces participated from 5 (out of the 7) continents on the planet. And all of your projects have a lot of merit.

It was interesting to me that the projects tended to cluster around 5 different realms:

- teaching electronics

- teaching biology

- teaching reading / arithmetic

- teaching music

- a general tool for students and teachers to interact

There were several people slated to “judge” the completed entries, and choose the three finalists we collectively thought were the coolest. This was not easy!! For one thing, most of the projects were incredibly cool! And for another, 27 groups of people doing 27 different projects create a lot of documentation to check out! But, we all did it. And we somehow came up with three finalists who will be flown out to the Maker Faire (in less than two weeks from now!)!

Before I list the three finalists, let me say that this Challenge really is not about “winning”. We are all winners here. Each hackerspace has received $900 from complete strangers to get together and create a project you think are cool. And each space has created a project that will help other people through education.

There’s no way to know, but it seems likely to me that the work and play you have put in over the past 6 weeks will continue to help you, your hackerspace, and others around the world in untold ways.

To me, this is just a taste of the kinds of things we can expect to come out of the hackerspace movement when people get together and do cool things!

As promised, each hackerspace who submitted a final proposal will be receiving a care package of really nice goodies from element14, including soldering stations and accessories to help your space teach electronics, and copies of CadSoft’s EAGLE, to help your space bring your electronics ideas into reality.

Without further delay, here is the list of three finalists that our panel of “judges” came up with (in alphabetical order, by hackerspace name):

* BuildBrighton's Phonicubes

simple, fun, way for teaching kids to read

* Hackerspace Charlotte’s Feltronics

elegant, simple, easy to reproduce method for teaching electronics

* Pumping Station: One’s GGHC Biosensor Array

inexpensive way for teaching bio (which has too often been too expensive)

Congrats to everyone, and to these three hackerspaces. All three of these finalists’ spaces will be receiving some way cool equipment. And these three hackerspaces now have the challenge of choosing one person to be flown to San Francisco to present their project at the Bay Area Maker Faire!

I hope you can all come to the San Francisco Maker Faire that takes place 21-May and 22-May at the San Mateo Faire Grounds.

The final event on the main stage of the Maker Faire will be an event not to be missed. Starting at 5:30pm on Sunday, 22-May, me and the other “judges” will do our best to pick one out of the three projects that these three hackerspaces created to help with education. Who will it be?

(And if you do make it to the Faire, please come by the Hardware Hacking Area, where, with the help of 30 volunteers, I’ll be teaching about 3,000 people of all ages how to solder over the weekend.)

Thanks to everyone for participating! Thanks to all the judges who put hours into checking out all of the material — Mitch Altman (that’s me), Josh Meyer, Jeff Keyzer, and Michele Dawson. Thanks to the hard-working and diligent folks at Silver Fox for coordinating everything —Ryan Miller, Paco Allen, Michael Martinez, Sally Stillman, Claire Burke, Amanda Cooper and Mark Sanders. And thanks to element14 for providing the funds and the spark that made it all happen! Finally, thanks to APEX tools, OK International, TechSpray, Fluke, Tektronix, and Agilent for donating the cool prizes!

All the best, Mitch.

Great Global Hackerspace Challenge Finalists Thirty Hackerspaces were invited to participate in the Great Global Hackerspace Challenge to help the goal of improving education around the world with technology. With less than two months and only $900 in funds the teams rose to the challenge and produced some amazing results. Now three projects have been selected by a group of industry leading Judges to be presented at the Maker Faire Bay Area with May 21st-22nd. Find out more about the teams and projects that were chosen.

	Hackerspace: BuildBrighton Project: Phonicubes Description: A simple, fun, way for teaching kids to read Find out more about this project at BuildBrighton's element14 community blog: http://www.element-14.com/community/groups/buildbrighton?view=blog

	Hackerspace: Hackerspace Charlotte Project: Feltronics Description: An elegant, simple, easy to reproduce method for teaching electronics Find out more about this project at Hackerspace Charlotte's element14 community blog: http://www.element-14.com/community/people/Hackerspace_Charlotte/blog

	Hackerspace: Pumping Station: One Project: GGHC Biosensor Array Description: An inexpensive way for teaching biology Find out more about this project at Pumping Station: One's element14 community blog: http://www.element-14.com/community/groups/pumping-station-one

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The Winner is Feltronics from Hackerspace Charlotte!

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